Chapter IV (2)

Usually they came in by fives, in arrow formation, but there were two that always went paired. Célestine learned to distinguish these two. One was a young Frenchman who, on the ground, wore the dark blue of an Alpine chasseur; but the other, in a drab uniform, was a foreigner. These two homed it later than the others: so late that sometimes Célestine could not wait and had to go away without seeing them. When they alighted, the pilots who had come in ahead, and the mechanics who stayed on the ground, strolled to the two planes; they asked questions and looked amused, and sometimes laughed loudly. One day Célestine heard herself resume to herself in words the effect this daily scene had upon her. “These two are the favourites,” she said to herself. “They are the Benjamins of the camp!”

The civilian onlookers, loitering about the camp, called the one in yellow uniform “l’Américain” and credited him with great deeds. “_There’s_ a rough boy!” they would say. “_There’s_ one who does tricks in the air!” For him Célestine felt a secret preference. The way he landed delighted her. As his plane, swirling down, touched the earth, he looked, in his leather helmet and armour, like some fabulous knight of the air; but even as his plane still rolled along the ground, he snatched off the leather helmet and became a red-headed boy. He always landed thus. While still rushing along the ground at tremendous speed, he snatched off his helmet and became a boy with carrot-red hair. Then something laughed within Célestine, and a bubble of tenderness burst softly in her heart.

Years ago, when a little girl in her native village in Brittany, she had loved secretly the neighbour’s son, whose hair was just like that. Now, whenever the plane landed, she saw her native village; she saw the small port, the stone mole, the painted boat heaving, the blue sea.

Gradually Célestine’s life, her drab beastlike life, became lit with a dim radiance as from a shaded lamp; her life centred itself altogether on the flying field. In the morning she kept running to her garret room as she worked; and, if she had any luck, saw the planes depart, five by five, five by five, then two. In the afternoon she was at her post in the clover field across the road from the camp. The farmer ploughed over there, a lark singing over his bent head. Farther, the hills were like opals in the sun. And on the other side of those hills the war was going on. She imagined the two fliers in the sky over there. Holding her eyes shut, she saw them in the great heights, wheeling and circling, falling and rising, in a cloud of enemy planes. She saw them, in manœuvres abrupt as lightning, pierce again and again the hostile envelopment--and planes fell, many, falling slowly, like snow drifting.

Late in the afternoon the two came home. The others came first, by fives, sometimes in quick succession, sometimes with long waits between. Sometimes, instead of five, there were four, the winged squadron was broken and on the field there would be much agitation, runnings to and fro, anxious questionings. But the two for whom Célestine waited usually came last, and came always in joy, tumbling like clowns down the skies. The American struck the earth--fabulous and formidable like a god. He snatched off his helmet--and he was a boy, a laughing red-haired boy. Through Célestine’s tired body a dull thud of tenderness went resounding deliciously.

About this time the enemy began to bomb the town at night. When came the first of these air raids Célestine did not know what was happening. She was awakened by a rapping of machine guns, by a boom-rrump, boom-rrump of upward shooting cannon, and, leaning out of her garret window, saw pretty cracklings of light up in the sky, as of many fireflies flashing into life suddenly and then dying. Then came an enormous single explosion, and everything went quiet. Célestine slid out into the black silent streets which were ghostily filling with whispering, shivering people; and following them came to a place, near the railroad track, where a little house had stood which she knew very well. The house was no longer there; where it had stood was only a great black hole.

But next night was worse. As, awakened again by the machine guns, Célestine stood uncertain in the narrow hallway outside of her room, a great explosion pressed both walls against her flanks as if they were going to meet, and another, following still nearer, shook the inn as if it were coming down like a pack of cards. Explosion followed explosion for hours as the malevolent birds buzzed in the dark sky overhead; and when at last they had gone, in the light of dawn Célestine saw that a whole block of houses near by lay ripped open, with red-quilt shreds of pulverized beds waving slowly in the cold morning wind.

The people of the town began to go out into the fields every night. By five every afternoon the iron shutters of all the shops clattered shut simultaneously, and along the streets went processions of women, children, babes, and old men, carrying their blankets out to the fields for the night; by sundown the city was an empty city. Célestine remained in her garret room and, lying on her back in her narrow bed, shook to ecstasies of fear and exulting vision. Lying there, rocked by terrific concussions, the whole world seemingly going to pieces beneath and about her body, small kernel in a cosmic chaos, she looked upward out of her soul into the night’s black inverted bowl and saw her champions flying there. In thunder-swift chargings, they darted to and fro among the night-enshrouded invaders. The American led all. For a time she saw him as pilot of a plane; then suddenly the wings attached themselves to his body, and he was an archangel with terrible swift sword; then again he was a boy, a laughing red-headed boy--and her withered heart, compressed layer and layer upon itself, opened out like a flower in the midst of her ignoble terror.

Just as abruptly as the night raiding had begun, it ceased for a time, and one evening the two fliers appeared at the inn and took rooms for the night. They had a ten-days’ leave, were going to Paris on the early morning train, and were very gay. Célestine watched them from her work with beating heart as they sat at their table in the court, lingering over their wine; and when finally she understood that they had taken rooms and were to be here for the night, a great excitement possessed her. She ran up to the rooms, although she had made them up early in the day, and made them up all over again; and when they had retired she stationed herself in the dark hallway, to await a possible call for service, hopeful at once and afraid.

After a while the door opened, light splashed out into the hall, and a voice called.

She rushed to answer it. The young Frenchman stood in the doorway. “_Dis-donc_, Madelon,” he said lightly, giving her the name of the song. “_Dis-donc_, Madelon, you know, we are freezing in this big tomb of yours!”

She ran swiftly down the three flights to the cellar, and came back with kindling and paper; she ran down once more and returned with a basket full of small logs. She squatted before the hearth and built up a fire.

She felt, rather than saw, the two armchairs behind her, spread side by side before the hearth as for a vigil of friendship. The young Frenchman was in one; the other was empty. Her heart gave a queer jump as she heard a step approach. It came from the other room, approached, stopped; there was the creak of crushed springs. He was there too, now, the other one, the American, in his big chair. She tried to strike a match, and failed.

The young Frenchman began to twit her amorously. Seen from behind, she was attractive enough, with firm white neck upon which strayed ringlets of her yellow hair. He rose, he stooped, he was near her. “_Allons_, Madelon, my lass--a little kiss. Just one small one, there where thy hair makes shadow!”

At another time probably she would not have been displeased: it was so seldom a man mistook and made love to her. But, somehow, the American’s being here made a difference. Somehow, this was not the way she wished to be seen by the American. She turned toward her gay persecutor the mask of her face--usually this was enough. But this time, perhaps because of the wine, or because of the frolic in his veins at the thought of his leave from Death’s incessant haunting, or merely because the flame of the fire left her in shadow, the boy did not quit, but rather increased his half-mocking demonstration of a half-assumed order, and finally, unconsciously, she turned to the other the eyes of one harassed. He sat there at ease, half smiling, but immediate communication leaped to him from her. “Come,” he cried, “Pierre! Quit this--you’re an utter nuisance!”

And smiling at her, he added, enunciating very slowly and carefully: “One must pardon him, mademoiselle: he is a little _saoul, vous savez_.”

The contrast between his scrupulous manner and his use of that word “saoul,” supposed to be uttered only by such low-class people as she, and not by gentlemen like him; the funny mewing drawl of his “voo-oo-ah saaav-ez”; and something so simple about him--these things suddenly created in her a tender delight, and she broke out laughing. He joined in, laughing at himself; the other joined in: all three were laughing. The young Frenchman, content with himself, and rather glad to have been stopped, let her be.

But then, after they had laughed, there was no more reason for staying. The fire was now drawing finely; everything about the room was in order; the two friends, in their chairs, were lighting their pipes. Célestine tiptoed out and closed the door.

She was out in the dark cold hall once more, all alone. But something of them was there. Their boots. They stood at the door, two pairs of them; one pair standing up stiff, as if at attention, the other pair careened over, as if tired. She gathered them up to her bosom, and took them up to her room to clean them.

By the light of the candle, reflected in her cracked mirror, she looked at them long after she had set them up on her washstand. One pair was light, of fine leather moulded to slender leg, and just a little fussy with many hooks; the other two were heavy and honest, and with enormous feet--ah, enormous!

She held the boots up before her eyes to realize fully the enormity of those feet, and laughed delightedly--then passed her hands over them in caress.

She now set to work and scrubbed and polished with adoration till late into the night.

They left early in the morning, and she did not see them. Once they called for hot water, but seized the pitcher with disembodied hands that reached out at the end of bare arms thrust through the door’s narrow crack. And when they came downstairs, all ready to go, her first intention, which had been to view them in their lustrous boots, dissolved into a sudden panic which sent her scurrying into the farthest depths of the black corridor.

So she did not see them, and when they returned they did not stop at the inn, but reported directly to the camp. The first she knew of their return was when, from her daily stationing in the field, she saw them, winged once more, swooping down like thunder out of the drifting opalescence of a sunset sky. The old relation reëstablished itself; every afternoon, in the field across the way from the Fliers’ Camp, Célestine stood and waited, and watched them as they homed.

As she stood thus in the clover field one late afternoon a plane came winging all alone from afar toward the camp--fast, with the directness of a wounded thing seeking its lair to die. As it came near, it did not approach the ground in the usual gradual circlings, but lit straight, with a sort of desperate urgency--and Célestine recognized the young Frenchman. Even as he still rolled along the ground, his helmet-framed face was turned sidewise toward the sheds, and with open mouth he was shouting out a question. Everybody about the camp was running to him; when the plane at last came to a standstill, all the men of the camp, pilots and mechanics, were grouped about it. Sagging in his seat, again he was asking the question. Célestine, from where she stood, could not hear at all, but just as surely as if she had heard, she knew that it was a question he was thus asking with his open mouth, and what question.

The men about the plane all shook their heads negatively; then, all together, they raised their heads and looked afar toward the east, the seams in their faces showing deep.

* * * * *

The flier climbed stiffly out of his cockpit and stood among the others. He was relating something. Not able to hear a word, Célestine followed what he said, terribly, by the way his hands went. There had been a combat. Two planes high in flight--this the two hands showed--and then many, many attacking them. The two hands, in fight and flight, darted here, darted there, rose, fell, turned over, slid sidewise down, for a while stubbornly together. Then the two hands went apart--and the tale continued, told by only one hand--the tale of one plane only--of the teller’s own plane. That plane was alone, cut off, pursued by many, in dire distress; it twisted and strove like a moth in a flame. Finally it abandoned itself, it fell; fell long, forsaken and loose like a dead leaf--it was doomed. But no--abruptly, the descriptive hand, almost touching the earth, straightened out with a supple movement; the plane, at full speed, went scuttling along the heads of the wheat, the pursuit shaken off, free!

The narrator halted. Again he shouted his question, fiercely, as though the violence of it might have potency in creating the right answer. But the others, all shaking their heads, stepped free from the plane and looked upward in the sky, toward the east.

It was time for Célestine to go, but she could not go. In the field she remained, waiting--but out of the east no more planes were coming. The crying of the child in its carriage finally recalled her to herself.

During the following days she saw that the young Frenchman was not flying; he loitered aimlessly among the sheds. He began to come to the inn. He would sit in a corner, looking fixedly at his table, drinking one glass of strong stuff after the other, till finally, told that the place was shutting up for the night, he would stiffly depart without a glance at the one who had spoken.

Then one day he shook himself and rose after the first drink. And the following afternoon Célestine saw that he was flying once more, captain of a squadron of five.

This, somehow, settled her last doubt, and when night had come, in a corner of the inn garden, she made a little grave.

It was thus they did in her native village, in Brittany. There, when a fisherman, gone to the far banks of Iceland, did not return at the end of the season, little untenanted graves were made along the churchyard wall in memory of those who had thus vanished.

Célestine made such a grave, in a corner of the garden where two thick stone walls met behind a thick chestnut tree. The recess was well hidden; few ever came there. She made a rectangular outline with white pebbles, drawing it thin so that one happening here should not quite be sure of what he saw; she bought a small Virgin of green porcelain and set it at the head. The little Virgin stood there always, a rosary drawn through her rudimentary hand, and with downcast eyes seemed to meditate upon the grave.

Every night now, no matter how weary she was, Célestine came here, and in the silence and the darkness said a prayer. This is all she had of what had passed--the little make-believe grave, and the nightly prayer, there in the secret silence behind the tree. The war had moved on to the east; there was talk of great victories; and the flying camp had gone to other parts as suddenly as it had come a few months before.

The moment of prayer at the end of the day came to have for her a sweet importance. It coloured the day, the long hard day. It lay there ahead, through the effort, the sweat, and the grime, like a small still harbour of pure blue water. And its peace overflowed back into the day; it made of the whole day a still, white peace. Within the peace she moved and toiled as if in a haze, deliciously numb of life’s asperities and life’s screams.

The war ended; she held to her grave, her prayer, and her secret, and a year went by. Then, one summer day, suddenly he reappeared, solid, alive, in flesh and blood.

She was washing the red flagging at the entrance of the court, and was on her knees amid soap and suds, as the omnibus, come from the station with many valises on its top, halted before the entrance. And he, leaping out, turned to give his hand to a fair-haired girl who was stepping down after him.

At first Célestine did not believe her eyes; then, when she did, she began to tremble. Kneeling there on the wet flagging, she trembled and trembled, her big opaque blue eyes raised to the newcomers as if they had been gods arisen from the sea.

His eyes fell upon her. “Hello,” he said shortly, “there’s Madelon!”

“_Bonjour_, Madelon,” he said, in that French which had so delighted her that day so long ago. “_Bonjour_, Madelon--do you not remember me?”

The fair-haired girl, standing by his side, her hand trustingly resting on his arm, also was looking down at the kneeling woman. Célestine rose suddenly, and, altogether shaken out of her usual heavy reticence, cried: “My faith--I had thought you dead!”

A burst of laughter from both, after a moment’s hesitation followed her words, and she, too, found herself laughing.

“My faith,” she explained, “you flew away and never came back!”

“It was to Germany I flew, Madelon--not because I wanted to. And you’re not the only one who thought me gone to another place. But now I live in America once more, and this is my new little wife. Shake hands with my little wife, Madelon.”

Célestine wiped her hands laboriously on her apron, and took, in one thick red one, the little white one offered her.

“And now me,” he said, and pumped her hand up and down, while she felt her face distended in a stupid grin.

But there were things to see about, many things. She ran to the valises and began to carry them in. She ran upstairs to the room, and refreshed the sheets and pillow slips; brought clear water. A sort of mad joy was in her heart, and her thick legs were light. In a moment, between jobs, she ran out into the court and, stooping behind the chestnut tree, with one large gesture of her heavy hand, scattered the little white pebbles and whisked the little Virgin into her pocket.

They remained three days, the young man and his bride; three days during which Célestine spent herself in an adoration of service.

Then they were gone--away to some of the other battlefields they went to visit--gone for ever.

* * * * *

For some time the happiness of those three days remained in Célestine’s heart like a vague resonance of music, then little by little her life discoloured into a bleak emptiness. The memory of the return, the fact that he whom she had mourned was really alive--these things her mind somehow would not hold; little by little they ceased to be in her; they were no guard and no refuge, and she missed greatly what had been before.

The happy haze in which she had then stirred was gone; life once more was sharp and screamed; out of the profundities of a deep stillness, like a happy dead disturbed, she had been brought up to a surface of raw airs and intolerable glitters.

After a time she knew what she missed; now and then the knowledge brought her, hesitant, to the small inclosed space behind the chestnut tree.

Then one night her mind was made up. From her small room beneath the eaves she stole down into the darkened garden.

Down on both knees, in the dark damp space behind the chestnut tree she outlined with white pebbles a small simulated grave; she placed at its head the little porcelain Virgin.

There--it was done. With bowed head, she said a prayer. Every night now she came here and said a prayer.

And little by little the old happiness returned, and finally it was as though he had never come back. At the end of each day stood the awaiting moment of prayer like a small still harbour of pure blue water. Its peace overflowed back into the day; it made of the entire day a still, white peace. The delicious numbness once more enwrapped her in its soft haze, deadening life’s sharp angles and sharp screams.

It was as though he had not returned; the memory of this interruption grew fainter and fainter; flattened out; ceased to be. She was left with her sweet dim sorrow; her grave, her secret, and her prayer.

WITCH MARY

BY GENEVIEVE LARSSON

From _Pictorial Review_

“Has any one of you seen Witch Mary of late?” Wise Olaf, keeper of the country store, asked the question of the farmers gathered in a group on the “grocery side.” A curious, vivid silence followed. They had been rejoicing over their fields of grain, which stood, as one man had exultantly proclaimed, high as a man’s arms, and were heavy with promise. Some made as if to speak, shifted uneasily, sucked back the half-formed words.

“Well?” questioned Wise Olaf.

Through the summer stillness a wind swept up from the river, came sighing in through the open door, and rattled the loose papers about. There was something eery, electric, about it, as though it carried with it an unseen presence.

“Hush! The women will hear you!” cautioned one, glancing across the room.

“Not seen a sign of her all summer; but that’s a good sign,” nervously ventured a gnarled, bent old man, stooping over the counter to pick up a stray coffee bean. He rubbed it between his horny palms, and then fell to munching it, his long chin nearly meeting his nose in the process. Assuming an attitude of cheerfulness, he glanced around carelessly, and then slumped back into a chair.

The women across the room were busy examining the rolls of blue and brown denim that Wise Olaf’s Kaisa displayed upon the counter, and had been chattering together busily. The summer was a good one, and they could buy extra yards. Underlying their Northern speech, in which were represented various provincial dialects of Sweden, was an undercurrent of wistful melancholy, as though they feared to be too joyous, lest some unforeseen disaster come upon them in the midst of their plenty. Now, quick to note a change of feeling in the men’s talk, they stopped, broken sentences suspended in the air, reluctantly left the goods upon the counter, and crossed to the other side.

“But what is it?” asked Kaisa, looking around at the guilty faces.

“We were just talking about Witch Mary,” answered Wise Olaf.

“We agreed, long ago, not to talk of her.” Kaisa’s voice was high-pitched, nervous. Her keen, rather hard-featured face lit up with a curious, avid expression. “As long’s you’ve started, _has_ any one seen her?”

“Not one time during the whole summer,” answered Olga, a fair, comely matron. “Though from my place I can see the top of the hill. Sometimes I run out, when the sun is high, thinking to catch a glimpse of her. The trees must have grown up about the hut. Every day, I remember, the year of the drought, I could see her standing there, waving her cane with one hand, and the other held to her brow, looking out over the valley.”

“The river, you mean,” put in Wise Olaf, carefully tying a package with his knotted hands.

A tremor passed over the crowd.

“I doubt not it was the river,” said Olga, rebuked. The men, some standing, others seated on chairs, placed conveniently about, puffed more heavily at their long corn-cob pipes.

“Sometimes,” Olga continued shamefacedly, “she looked so lonely standing there. Just as if she were turned to a statue of grief. I wanted to run up and comfort her. But I never dared. Besides, Sven would not permit me. And there is no road, only this path, leading down to the river.”

“A good thing for you that you didn’t go,” said the gnarled old man, trying to speak lightly. “Silent Sven would have been left a widower.” The men laughed relievedly, and the shy young giant standing beside the counter flushed to the roots of his yellow hair.

“Oh, I don’t know,” finished Olga, weakly. “I--I am sorry for her, poor old soul!”

“Some say she was seen the day Black Eric left,” Kaisa’s shrill voice broke in. “She stepped in front of him on the road, and the horses stopped dead. She cursed him as usual. ‘So you are going away,’ she screamed; ‘but I will follow you--I will follow you!’ He struck at her with his whip, but she avoided him. ‘I hope you die!’ he shouted at her, and she screamed back, ‘Ay, though I were dead a thousand years, my hate for you would bring me back!’”

“_Ja, käre Gud!_” sighed a wrinkled old crone. “Let us stop talking of this and finish our buying.” She turned to cross the store; nobody heeded her, and, as though reluctant to miss anything, she stayed.

“Perhaps Black Eric took her with him”--the man who spoke laughed hollowly--“for not once since, as near as I can figure, has she been seen.”

“That’s likely!” retorted Wise Olaf. “She’s the only thing he was ever afraid of.”

“I didn’t think he’d stay away this long,” said the old man, “He loved his power over us too much. And now he’s gone since last November.”

“Oh, he’ll be back soon enough,” answered Wise Olaf. “I saw Young Eric the other day. He’s expecting him any time.”

“I was having a good time,” grumbled the old crone, puffing away at her pipe, “and you’ve made me ill with your talk!”

“Always in the winters before,” continued Kaisa, “I have seen her coming down the path on her skis. At night, thinking no one would see her. There she’d come, swiftly, her skirts flying behind her, and straight down she would go, over the bank, and out to the spot where her daughter was drowned. You should have heard her moaning, and wringing her hands! And she would cry something terrible. Many times I’ve asked Olaf to build us a house elsewhere, and not live here in the store like heathen folk, where we had to see such a sight and listen to such things. ’Tis not good for the children.”

“I’ve heard,” said Olga, her voice soft and pitying, “that she was just like other people before she lost the girl. That they were very happy, even though they were so poor, with their little garden and their hut. Perhaps she is like others still, only we are afraid of her, and that makes her queer. Perhaps we should go up and see if anything has happened to her?” She looked around questioningly, her blue eyes pleading.

“I’ve often said so to Kaisa,” answered Wise Olaf. “It’s you women, I said, should go----”

“How can you expect us to go,” asked Kaisa angrily, “when you men are afraid?”

“And with good reason,” cackled the old man, his toothless gums still busy with the coffee bean. “I’m old here, and I know. I was with those that went up, shortly after we’d found the daughter, and Witch Mary had had her brought up there, and buried beside the hut----”

“Beside the hut--think of that! That was no Christian thing to do. You must have known then there was something wrong.”

“Why, no. We thought that natural enough, crazed with grief as she was. Never shall I forget when we found the body and carried it home. One of us could have carried her easily, so light she was. And beautiful, even when dead. Like an angel that’s been caught asleep.” His voice took on a dreamy, far-away tone. “Her hair was loose, and so long it swept the ground. It looked _alive_, and we dared not touch it, so we carried her high----”

The room was silent. Outside rang the voices of children playing among the willows.

“And the water fell from her hair, like great tears, all along the path----”

In the heavy silence the women stood motionless, eyes downcast. The men held their bodies rigidly. A burst of wind entered, passed through with a long, drawn-out sigh. It died with a moan. They started up apprehensively.

Kaisa rudely broke the silence. “But go on,” she said. “What happened when you went up afterward? After the girl was buried? We’ve never heard the real truth about that.”

“A week later, all in a friendly spirit, we went to her, thinking to buy her trees. The rest of us were cleaning out our timber. And she had the best trees of all, standing on the level stretch behind the hut, where they could easily be rolled right down to the river and taken to the mill. It would have relieved her poverty, and we thought that would help. We didn’t look for her to take on so, seeing we came for that----”

“Well?” questioned Kaisa, her black eyes snapping with curiosity.

“Black Eric was with us,” the old man went on. “That was a mistake, I suppose, seeing she blamed it all on him. Though I don’t know that he was guilty. He said she jumped right out of the boat, and that he couldn’t save her----”

“There are those,” said Olga, darkly, “that think he _wouldn’t_. That he’d coaxed her into the boat against her will, and that she had no choice. It was death--or something worse. _That_ was like him!” Her breast heaved with excitement.

“What use to dig it up?” asked the old man gently. “No one really knows. Anyway, Black Eric went along, though he acted queer. One of the men had told him he daren’t. That’s how he came to go. Too much of a blusterer to take a dare. Everything was quiet when we got there. We rapped at the door, and no one answered. Then we went on to where the girl was buried, near the hut between two large oaks. There lay Mary, with the cloth tied around her head, and her red shawl around her shoulders, just as we’ve seen her dressed ever since. Lying flat down on the grave. I thought at first she was dead. So must the rest have thought, and Black Eric shrieked out, ‘O God, she’s dead!’ Then we heard a dreadful weeping, and she got up--no, I did not see her get up, but there she stood.

“In a few days she’d grown into an old woman, though she wasn’t young, even when the girl was born. But such a face as she turned to us! Like an old parchment containing saga lore. Wrinkled and mad with grief, but with a _power_! Almost as if she could have swept us away with one hand. Her eyes bored through us--they were like burnt-out cinders, dead, but yet terribly alive. When she saw Black Eric she went wild. She shrieked and whirled before us until I was dizzy. Some of the men were so afraid they didn’t even _see_ her; she blinded them. She hurled her curses. Never, never have I seen such a sight!”

“Oh, poor thing, poor thing!” choked Olga, thinking, no doubt, of her own mother, lonely and bent with work in far-away Vermland.

“She drove us down the hill. Frightened as we all were, no one of us was shaken with terror as Black Eric was. Never has any one ventured near her since, though God knows how she lives. It’s not often we let a neighbour go without food. That’s not our way. But what could we do? There was a little clearing where she had her garden, and she and her girl used to work in the old days, but she’s old now, and even if she were able----”

“She has never so much as bought a pound of coffee here,” hastened Kaisa. “Half starved she must be, and frozen in the winter.”

“I hope he never comes back!” cried Olga passionately.

“He? Who?” questioned Kaisa.

“Black Eric. He’s evil--he’s----”

“Oh, as for that,” said the old man, “no one knew if he was guilty or not. There was no proof. And I’ve heard said he’s coming--soon. But one should not blame him too much. He was young when this happened, and he loved the girl----”

“Love? You call that love?” Olga’s tones were hot with wrath. She looked at her husband, Silent Sven, and her face changed and softened. Her little girl came running in through the open door, clasping a bunch of purplish-blue flowers in her hand. She pushed through the crowd and burrowed her golden head in her mother’s skirts.

“I am, afraid, Mamma; I am afraid,” she panted, trembling violently.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, _lillä vannen_,” comforted her mother, trying to steady her own voice. “We are right here where we can see you through the windows.”

“Where did you get those flowers?” Kaisa’s tones were sharper than usual. “Not on the river bank, surely.”

“Gerda and I--we went up--up the path a little ways just a little ways,” said the girl, “to pick them.”

“That’s blue vervain!” screamed Kaisa, raising her arms in horror. “Throw it away, child; it’s cursed!”

The little girl dropped the flowers.

“Pick it up and throw it out!” she ordered.

“Hush!” said Olga, stooping for the flowers. “Do not frighten the little one. That’s but an old foolish superstition.”

She crossed to the door and flung the blossoms far. Coming back, she asked Silent Sven if he had some candy for the children. He pulled a bulky bag from his pocket.

“Do not go up the path again,” cautioned Olga. “Stay on the river bank. Now run and play with the others. Mind you give some candy to the rest!”

The girl reached eagerly for the bag and started for the door, drying her eyes with one hand. She ran off the board platform, darted between the wagons hitched in front of the store, and on down to the river bank where the children were swinging on the young willows.

“I do believe some one else is coming,” cried Olga, going to the window and peering out. She uttered a dismayed cry, and the rest crowded behind her.

Black Eric dashed up in a smart new buggy, to which were hitched two slim, shining horses. A moment later, whip in hand, he entered the store. He looked around, smiling at the group, and began shaking hands, greeting each one jovially.

“And here’s Olga, too,” he cried, his black eyes snapping with delight as he stepped up to her. The young woman’s face flushed hotly. Silent Sven edged nearer.

“My name is Mrs. Nillson,” she said coldly, refusing to take his hand.

“Ven can I come for coffee and some of your good _äppelkaka_?” he smirked, laughing at her dismay.

“Talk Swede so I can understand,” croaked the old woman puffing viciously at her pipe, “and leave Olga alone. You needn’t put on airs, for all you’ve been to the city.”

“Well, old sourface!” he answered good-naturedly. “Anything to please such a beauty as you! _Ta’ mej fan_, but I’m glad to be back!” He looked around from face to face, but saw no gleam of welcome. “What’s the matter?” he asked abruptly. They shrank away, as if fearing the ring of command in his voice.

Olga touched her husband’s arm. “Let’s go, dear,” she coaxed. “Let’s go at once.”

“We’ll stay yet awhile,” answered Sven, flashing her a reassuring smile.

“He’ll get them all in his power,” she whispered. “Just as he had them before. Every one of us. I can feel it in his voice.” She tugged at his sleeve.

“I’m not in his power, and I said we’d stay awhile,” he answered quietly.

“What brought you back, Eric?” asked Wise Olaf. “Love for Young Eric, I suppose?” The crowd responded with a smothered laugh.

Black Eric chose not to take offence. “Why, as for that,” he said, “perhaps I did want to see Young Eric. It’s natural enough for a father to want to see his son, isn’t it? But that wasn’t the real reason. I came because I couldn’t sleep. Night after night I lay awake, and always I heard a curious sound, like a tapping, tapping, tapping. I thought if I came back here I could rest again----”

“A tapping!” cried Olga. “Then you did take Witch Mary with you!”

Black Eric’s face, pale before, lost the last vestige of colour. He wheeled upon her. “What do you mean?” he demanded.

“The tapping of her cane!” she answered. “She’s not been seen since you left.”

“I hope to God she’s dead!” There was a note of defiant relief in Black Eric’s voice. At the shout of protest that greeted his words he became placating. “Well, she’s done us all harm, hasn’t she? She brought the drought upon us with her curse. She cursed yet again, and the dam broke up the river, and the flood came and drowned many of our cattle. She----”

Swarming in through the door came the children, cutting short his speech. They ran, terrified, to their mothers.

“I knew it!” sobbed Olga’s girl. “I knew something awful would come!”

“But what is it? What’s the matter?” cried the women, alarmed.

Kaisa’s boy, the oldest of the children, answered. “The Witch! Witch Mary! She came down the path to the river. Didn’t you hear her clicking her old cane? Didn’t you hear her curse?”

“Will she--will she--come in here, I wonder?” faltered one woman.

“She said the serpent of the river would get him! She cried it out! She waved her cane and said that!”

“No,” protested another child, “she said she would kill him!”

“I could not see her--I was so--so scared!” a third added, with chattering teeth.

Black Eric stood silent, his face pale and twitching. He was evidently fighting for control.

“Where’d she go?” he asked.

“Down to the river!”

“No, she went back in the woods. She went fast, like the wind!”

They crowded to the windows, the children still clinging to their mothers. Beyond the river bank stretched a sandbar, gleaming white in the sun. The river coiled and twisted like sensuous green snakes writhing together.

“There she is, Mamma! See her through the willows!” cried Kaisa’s boy excitedly.

“O God, yes, there she is! Her clothes are frayed, they blow about her, she waves her cane in the air!”

“Where, where?” pleaded a voice.

“Red shawl dragging on her shoulder, cloth around her head!”

“_Ja käre Gud!_” gasped one.

“Can’t you hear her, Mamma?” wailed the little girl. “She’s muttering----”

A peculiar moaning broke upon them.

“‘Tis but the river, child,” soothed Olga. “Hush, _vännen_, do not cry so!” Her own voice was wavering, full of a nameless fear.

“Muttering her curses, of course,” finished Black Eric, laughing hideously.

“She’ll bring some awful thing upon us, even now, with our harvests full!” sobbed the old crone. Her pipe fell unheeded to the floor.

“_Ta’ mej fan_ if she will!” cried Black Eric, suddenly straightening his shoulders and throwing back his head. “It’s a good thing I came back just in time. What are you, a parcel of weaklings, to let her bring you bad luck with her curses?”

“She has done no harm,” ventured Olga, but her words sounded feeble.

“Done no harm!” shrieked Black Eric, cracking his whip. “There was the time when the spring was well on the way. The grain was already up from the ground. The wheat was doing bravely, and the rye was a foot tall. She hadn’t been seen for some time----”

“You’d been gone, then, too, I remember,” accused Olga. “You’d been gone, and we hadn’t seen her, and when you returned she----”

“That’s nothing to do with it!” he snapped. “She appeared, and cursed us----”

“She cursed _you_, you mean.” Olga hid behind her husband, peering out at Black Eric with hate in her eyes. “She has never troubled us----”

“The bad luck fell upon all alike, didn’t it? With the grain as green as could be, and no crows to speak of. Everything pointed to a good summer. And what happened, I ask you?” His tones rang out clearly now, swept over them with hypnotic spell.

“Come, Sven, before he gets us in his power,” she whispered.

“The rains came down and washed it all away. We had to sow the second time, and then it was too late, and we lost everything, even the seed. And the rains washed away much of our land, dragged it into the ravines----”

“That is true!” sighed the old man, looking even older and more wrinkled.

The faces of the men lengthened, became sad and thoughtful. Memories of long, hard years of heart-breaking toil lingered with them. Many were bent and broken in the struggle, their joints swollen and knotted with rheumatism from the cruel winters. Ah, it had taken years to win their small farms from the hold of the forests, here on the hilly slopes of Wisconsin. They had given their lives to it.

“It might have happened anyway,” pleaded Olga, gazing fearfully around upon the altered faces of the men. “We can’t expect all the years to be good as this one. Farmers everywhere have some bad years----”

“And there was the time,” Black Eric, his eyes gleaming evilly, went on, paying no attention to her interruption, “that the children were coming home from school. They had made wreaths of poison-ivy and hung them around their necks. Witch Mary met them, and told them they would die at sundown. Did they not nearly die?” he demanded, this time addressing the women.

“What are you saying?” cried Olga, drawing the little girl closer. “I have never heard of that.”

“We thought best not to speak of it, lest the children get too frightened,” said Kaisa. “Young Eric nearly died, as it was. And certain it is they would all have died if they had not come home in time for us to treat them.”

Olga stooped to lift the little girl, passionately folding her close.

“Each time she has cursed us it has been something more terrible,” Black Eric’s voice rang out. “God knows what it will be this time! And always it has happened when our crops were doing nicely and our hopes were high----”

“That is true; yes, yes, that is true!”

“So now, with your barns so full of hay it sticks out for yards at the open sides and your grain ready to harvest, now--she comes cursing again! And you men are weak enough to let her rob you of this! And you women! What are you, that you will let her curse your children? Such mothers! Bah! Even a dog will protect its young! Yes, like as not it will fall upon the children this time----”

“No, no, no!” The women shrank from him. Some staggered as though they would have fallen, and sat weakly down. A brutal look was dawning in the faces of the men. Silent Sven alone was not moved; his arms were folded in front, his head thrown back.

“Even in the old days,” Black Eric went on, “before people were civilized, they destroyed the witches that brought them harm. They drove them out! They burned them at the stake!”

“No, no!” Olga found her voice with a choking effort. “You will not be so cruel--you will not burn her!”

Black Eric’s eyes gleamed savagely. He towered above them, triumphantly.

“I shouldn’t advise that,” he agreed, “but--to drive her out----”

“Who is to do this?” quavered a voice.

“Look, Mamma,” cried the little girl. “She is running back to the woods!”

“Running back to the hut,” shrilled Kaisa, peering out, “with her plaid shawl hanging over her bones!”

“Now is the time!” cried Black Eric. “Now, when you can catch her in the hut! Go quickly, you men!”

“And what about _you_?” Silent Sven addressed Black Eric for the first time.

“Me?” cringed Black Eric. “It--would not--do for me----”

“Oh, you _daren’t_!” Silent Sven flung the challenge at him.

“_Daren’t!_ You can’t say that word to me! Come on, all of you! I will lead you! I will show you if I dare!” He started for the door, the men preparing to follow him.

“I will go, too!” cried Olga. “You shall not burn her; I can at least see to that!”

“I would burn her,” retorted Kaisa. “I would help light the fagots! Olaf, you stay in the store.”

“Is that so?” said Olaf, with gleaming eyes. “I shall be needed, like as not. ’Tis a woman’s place to stay at home.”

“I’m not going to be cheated of this!” Kaisa turned to the old crone. “You stay,” she coaxed. “You couldn’t climb the hill, anyway. It’s a long hill.”

“I can climb the hill,” quavered the old woman. “I can climb it as well as anybody. I shall go with the others. See, everyone is going. I shall not stay behind.”

“I will give you a pound of coffee, the best in the store. I will give you two yards of cloth for an apron.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Five pounds of coffee,” she wheedled, “and five yards of your best goods, or I go with the rest!”

“Five pounds! No, that I will never----”

“And some tobacco! Yes, I think I must have some tobacco!”

“Oh, give it to her!” cried Wise Olaf. “Give it her, and let us be on!”

Cautioning the children to play on the bank until their return, they formed in a group at the base of the hill, where the path led up to Witch Mary’s hut. Black Eric cracked his whip. The men picked up long sticks, all except Silent Sven. Viking cruelty shone in their faces. The women would have clung to their arms, but the men shook them off and started ahead, Black Eric leading.

It was a tangled path, knotted across by roots of trees and shrubs. The branches of the trees interlaced above, forming a shady arch. All along, beside the way, slender spires of blue vervain lifted their purple blossoms to the random sun.

“See,” said Kaisa, awed by the luxuriant growth. “See how thick it is. And witches have always used it in their caldrons. No wonder it grows here!”

“But the vervain,” protested Olga, “the vervain grew on Mount Calvary, and it has the power of healing.”

“You will say next, I suppose,” Kaisa retorted, “that it has been watered by the old witch’s tears!”

“Come on, you women!” called Wise Olaf. “Do not lag behind!”

The women became silent, not stopping again to take note of the flowers beside the way. They panted after the men, who were climbing rapidly.

“Can you see the hut?” called Kaisa, pausing to get her breath.

“No, the trees have grown up about it. And don’t _talk_--she’ll hear us.”

“I’d no idea it was such a hard hill.” Kaisa’s face was red; her eyes were wildly excited.

“Do you think they will kill her?” whispered Olga. “Even Sven looked fierce.”

“‘Twould serve her right.”

As they neared the top the women too picked up stout sticks. “Just to help us climb,” suggested one, as if ashamed.

“I want no stick,” said Olga, but she stopped for a moment with the others. “Oh, look! You can see the river from here--just the place, I believe, where the girl was drowned!”

The men called them again, and by the time they had caught up, the top of the hill was reached. They paused a moment at the edge of the clearing. Young trees had grown so high that they overshadowed the hut. The wind rattled through the leaves in hollow whispers. They saw the hut at last, sagging between the branches. The stovepipe had fallen, but still clung to the rotted shingles. The one window overlooking the river was broken and had not been repaired.

“It was a poor hut, at best,” said the old man. “Let us not be too hard on her.”

“Ho!” blustered Eric, swinging around to face the speaker savagely. “You are already weakening, are you?”

A debating silence followed, then the old man decided. “No, she must be driven out.”

They made their difficult way through tangled weeds and shrubs to the door, which faced the woods behind.

“You rap,” said Black Eric. “One of you, any one.”

“Not I.” Wise Olaf shook his head. The others shrank back.

“What about _you_?” Silent Sven again challenged the leader. “You--you are afraid to!”

“I am afraid, am I?” he sputtered. He walked unsteadily to the door, his face haggard with fear.

“Everything is silent--silent as the grave,” whispered Olga, clinging to her husband’s arm, openly afraid.

“What’s that?” a startled voice cut in. “Sobbing? Was that sobbing?” A wailing note swept through the trees.

“Hush!”

Black Eric raised his hand. The knob was rusty, the door sunken in. He rapped, feebly at first, his hands trembling like aspen-leaves. Getting no response but an empty echo from within, he struck his fist heavily against the door. It almost gave way.

“Open the door, Witch!” he cried. “You can’t hide from us!”

“Don’t be so harsh,” begged Olga, her voice the wraith of a whisper. “You will frighten her to death!”

Goaded to desperation, he raised his fist, and gave the door a terrific blow. It fell with a soft thud, the rotted wood crumbling on the floor. He stepped in, the rest following.

A thick carpet of dust lay over the floor. No imprint upon it, except some tracks left by wandering rats. A stove, red with rust and warped beyond recognition, stood on one side, supporting an old country metal coffeepot, filmed with black. Cobwebs hung from the rude rafters overhead. The round home-made rugs, once brave with gay colours, looked like little mounds of earth. Beside the broken window stood a sagging spinning wheel, so long unused that it drooped in utter dejection, one spindle fallen down.

At first bewildered, utterly struck dumb, then filled with horror too deep for words, the people looked around the room, its silent pathos striking like icy hands across their consciousness.

“She has not--_lived_ here!” Kaisa found her voice first. She stooped and picked up a rusty pan lying beside the stove, and hung it on a bent nail, as though in this small act she found consolation.

“What--what is that--over there?” She pointed to a curtain drawn over an object on one side.

There was a gasp. “Maybe--maybe she is--dead--behind----”

“Dead! You fools!” shrieked Black Eric. “Didn’t we just see her?” He staggered to the curtain, grasped it roughly. It fell, a crumpled mass of dust and decayed cloth, disclosing the two built-in bunks, now empty, where Mary and her daughter had slept.

“There, you see! She must be living in the outhouse, the barn. She--she kept the cow there. Let’s look for her there.” And he passed over what had been the door, the rest following.

“The grave!” cried the old man. “I remember where it was. Let us look for the grave!”

“Leave the grave alone!” choked Black Eric, his face twitching horribly. “She is out in the barn, I tell you! See, I think she is there!” He pointed a shaking finger to another broken-down hut between the trees.

“We will find the grave,” said Silent Sven. “You said it was between the oaks.”

“I won’t go there!” gasped Black Eric. “Let us look----”

“You’ll come with us!” Silent Sven commanded, grasping Black Eric by the shoulder and dragging him along. Silent and awed, the crowd proceeded through the tangle of weeds and young trees to the side of the hut between the two oaks. Some of the men began to poke around with their sticks, but Olga stopped them.

The old man motioned silently to a depression in the ground. “It is long ago,” he whispered. “The grave--is sunken.”